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Comment by underdeserver | Hacker News Reader

I dove deep into Vitamin D supplementation research during Covid. The tl;dr as I understand it - and bear in mind I'm a layperson in this - is that while Vitamin D deficiency correlates to many bad things, taking Vitamin D doesn't help. It does raise your level as it shows up in blood tests, but the bad things still happen.

Except for some very specific issues.

I have a mild deficiency and used to take Vitamin D. I stopped taking it after consulting with a doctor on the meaning of the VITAL study results [1]. I also recommend [2], from a practicing surgeon who deals with Vitamin D related medical issues in patients.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35939577/ [2] https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence

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>while Vitamin D deficiency correlates to many bad things, taking Vitamin D doesn't help.

Your links state the exact opposite and it's important to get wording right here. If you have a tested vitamin D deficiency (and it's not "mild", as Deva Boone highlights), there are CLEAR benefits to supplementing.

It's only in healthy individuals where the benefits are tiny (like the cancer testing 0.9% v 1.2%) or non-existent.

I should have been clearer.

The way I understand it, for healthy people, a low Vitamin D result on a blood test doesn't merit supplementation.

For various specific illnesses, diagnosed separately, addressing Vitamin D deficiency through supplementation could help.

(Not a doctor, don't take medical advice from HN comments)

Thank you for this. I've heard that it's not so much the Vitamin D itself that may be beneficial, but rather the process whereby Vitamin D gets produced that results in the benefits.

The tapestry of cells in our bodies has evolved over millions of years to function in a way that is most favorable to propagating themselves in the context of the environment in which they underwent natural selection. It seems we've removed ourselves from that environment in a lot of ways and then have been trying to compensate for that by micro-managing telemetry that we're able to easily or cheaply observe. However the underlying complexity is far, far beyond what we see as the end result of the cellular processes.

For those of us with winter to deal with the better approach might turn out to be judicious use of UV tanning beds.

FWIW, I think the article agrees.

> vitamin D effects were significantly greater in females versus males and in normal cognition versus mild cognitive impairment.

> vitamin D effects were significantly greater in apolipoprotein E ε4 non-carriers versus carriers.

Translation: If you’re already cognitively impaired, vitamin D can do little to fix that. Same goes for if you’re at high risk for Alzheimer’s genetically (ApoEε4), or generally at higher risk for neurovascular diseases (male).

However, as I’m sure others in the comments will point out — supplementing vitamin D will at least ensure you’re not getting cognitive impairment due to vitamin D deficiency, which seems to absolutely be a thing.

There have been many other studies on vitamin D and COVID-19. Recommend reading them all before forming a conclusion.

https://vitamin-d-covid.shotwell.ca/

The reason is because vit-D is a marker of sun exposition but the the important part.

Infrared is: https://youtu.be/wadKIiGsDTw

TLDR: get some real sun, if you can’t infrared light.

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